David Tarloff Found Guilty of Bludgeoning and Stabbing Psychologist, Kathryn Faughey

A jury convicted David Tarloff, in court on Friday, of first-degree murder in the 2008 attack, with a meat cleaver and a rubber mallet.

Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

March 28, 2014

David Tarloff, a man with schizophrenia who bludgeoned and stabbed a psychologist to death during a botched robbery six years ago, was found guilty of her murder on Friday by a Manhattan jury that rejected an insanity defense.

The verdict in State Supreme Court came in the third attempt to convict him. A year ago, a mistrial was declared after the jury announced it was deadlocked. The first trial, in 2010, stalled during jury selection when Mr. Tarloff became unstable.

Mr. Tarloff, who appeared with long, scraggly hair in a dingy sweatsuit, betrayed little emotion as the jury forewoman rose to read the verdicts, reached after seven hours of deliberations.

The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in the attack, with a meat cleaver and a rubber mallet, on the psychologist, Kathryn Faughey. He was also found guilty of assault and attempted robbery for maiming Dr. Kent D. Shinbach, a psychiatrist who shared an office with her.

In the audience, members of Dr. Faughey’s family who had attended most of the monthlong trial hugged one another and wept as the verdicts were read. “The ordeal is over, thank God,” said Owen Faughey, her brother. “We got justice for our beautiful sister Kathryn.”

As in last year’s trial, the critical issue was whether Mr. Tarloff, when he killed Dr. Faughey, was in the grip of a psychotic delusion that prevented him knowing that what he was doing was wrong.

Mr. Tarloff’s lawyers, Bryan Konoski and Frederick L. Sosinsky, argued that their client had a long history of delusions about communicating directly with God. He told doctors who examined him that his plan to rob Dr. Shinbach — which spun out of control when Dr. Faughey confronted him first — had been sanctioned by the lord.

But the lead prosecutor, Evan Krutoy, argued that Mr. Tarloff’s mental illness never grew so severe that he could not distinguish right from wrong. Nor, he argued, did Mr. Tarloff show signs he was out of touch with reality on the day of the killing.

Mr. Tarloff faces a maximum term of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced May 2. Had the insanity defense succeeded, he could have been ordered held indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital.

His lawyers said they would appeal.

The defendant’s brother, Robert Tarloff, said, “I am hopeful now that the Faughey family has some peace, that it’s finally over.”

Mr. Tarloff, 47, told the police he went to Dr. Shinbach’s office on East 79th Street on Feb. 12, 2008, to rob the doctor of $50,000 for a far-fetched scheme to kidnap his mother from a hospital and move with her to Hawaii.

Jurors said they were convinced that even though Mr. Tarloff at times had delusions about communicating with God, he still knew that the robbery and murder were immoral in society’s eyes and understood that he had committed a crime.

“He’s sick, but I feel like he knew what he was doing,” said a juror, Dana Torres, 27, a construction worker. “For me, if he had said Satan told him to do this, it would have been a different story.”

Another juror, Emma Pulitzer, 27, said the narrow rules governing the insanity defense left the jury little choice but to convict Mr. Tarloff, because even during psychotic periods he was obsessed with religion and morality. Still, she said, Mr. Tarloff belonged in a mental hospital, not a prison.

“I felt like there needed to be one more box,” Ms. Pulitzer said, “the box for the obviously crazy people who know right and wrong.”

At the start of deliberations on Thursday, only two jurors were leaning toward finding Mr. Tarloff not responsible because of insanity, jurors said. After heated discussion, the holdouts were persuaded to join the majority.

One of the jurors initially on the fence was Tiffany Brown, 38, a city employee, who said she thought Mr. Tarloff “might have snapped” when he encountered Dr. Faughey.

But Ms. Brown said she eventually decided that the defense had not offered strong evidence of Mr. Tarloff’s state of mind during the attack. Also, she said, he seemed rational during a videotaped confession to detectives a few days later. “He understood what he did in that interview,” she said. “He started off being apologetic.”

Other jurors agreed that the videotape had been critical to their decision, offering an unfiltered peek into Mr. Tarloff’s state of mind shortly after the crime, and months before he told doctors that God had sanctioned the robbery.

“His mannerisms, his way of speaking — he knew what was going on,” said Kevin Berry, 48, a flight attendant. “I believe he’s sick to a certain degree, but not sick enough to not know right from wrong.”